NY judge rules Trump violated gag order

Lawyers conclude questioning of banker

By: Aysha Bagchi
USA Today

NEW YORK - The ninth day of Donald Trump;s New York hush money trial started with a slap on the wrist from Judge Juan Merchan.
..... Merchan said he had determined Trump violated a gag order in the case nine of the 10 times alleged by the prosecution. Trump will be fined $1,000 for each violation. The judge said he would issue a written decision that will provide more details.
..... The prosecution said Trump has violated the gag order an additional four times since they brought the 10 incidents before the judge last week. [04/23/2024] there will be a hearing later this week [05/03/2024] to address the new allegations.
..... Also Tuesday, Merchan said Trump can attend his youngest son Barron's high school graduation in Florida on May 17. [2024]
..... For the first time, a family member was in the courthouse with Trump to hear these decisions: his son Eric Trump.
..... The former president is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to allegedly cover up a conspiracy to unlawfully interfere with the 2016 election. Prosecutors say Trump authorized a $130,000 hush money payment form lawyer Michael Cohen to adult film actor Stormy Daniels and violated federal campaign finance laws.
..... Danial has claimed she and Trump had sex in 2006. Trump denies that and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
..... As usual, Trump squeezed some campaign activities into the day and sought to put his own spin on events.
..... Before motoring to the courtroom, he did an interview with a Michigan television station in advance of a Wednesday [05/01/2024] rally near Saginaw.
..... At the courthouse, Trump told a group of reporters, "I'd much rather be in Georgia. "He criticized the protest at Columbia University and other colleges and urged listeners to look at his interview in Time magazine in which he outlined his plans for another term in the White House. And also as usual, he complained about the judge , the trial and the chilly courtroom.
..... After Merchan's announcements, the prosecution pick up where it left of Friday, [04/26/2024] questioning banker Gary Farro about arrangements for the hush money payment.
..... Farro said he was assigned Cohen as a client in 2015, when he was senior managing director at First Republic Bank.
..... In October 2016, Cohen asked Farro to help him open an account "immediately" for a new limited liability company, Essential Consultants LLC, according to Farro's Friday [04/26/2024] testimony. Prosecutors have alleged Cohen opened a bank account that month in the name of a shell company he cerated in order to pay Danials the $130,000 hush money later that month.
..... Prosecutor Rebecca Mangold took Farro through documents showing Cohen sought to pull $131,000 from a home equity line of credit, and to have the money transferred to the new account.
..... Cohen said he was opening the LLC for his real estate investment consulting work. It didn't raise alarms for Farro, he said.
..... But if Farro had known the truth, the transfer would have proceeded much more slowly - if at all, he transferring.
..... All money wire transfers had to be approved by the bank, Farro said. If Cohen had indicated he was transferring money on behalf of a political candidate, there would have been additional due diligence issues that could have delayed things, Farro said.
..... In addition, if Cohen had indicated his wire transfer was a payment to an adult film star, there would "definitely: have been "enhanced due diligence" by the bank. Farro added that an adult film actor's involvement would "certainly" have delayed the transaction," and it's possible the bank wouldn't have approved the wire transfer at all out of reputation concerns.
..... Moreover, Farro testified that he generally didn't assist clients who said they were opening a shell company that didn't have a business behind it. The exception was an LLC to maintain anonymity for owning a home, boat or aircraft.
..... In cross-examination, Trump defense lawyer Todd Blanche got Farro to confirm that nothing about Cohen's new account raised a red flag. That might be groundwork for the defense team to later argue to the jury that the banker saw no red flags at the time, so why would Trump?
..... Farro confirmed that Cohen was an "aggressive guy," a "fast speaker" and someone who wasn't easy to work with if you couldn't convey that not everything could get done as quickly as the client wanted.
..... After Farro's testimony, Merchan ruled that prosecutors may not bring in evidence designed to show Trump was exhibiting consciousness of his own quilt.
..... The parade of relatively low-octane witnesses continued with Robert Browning, an executive director of C-SPAN's archives. questioning him, Mangold played several video clips of Trump denying different women's claims about him.
..... "I have no idea who these women are," Trump said in one clip, and, "The stories are total fiction. They're 100% made up. They never happened."

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